Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, by Judith Tick

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Becoming Ella Fitzgerald by Judith Tick

Ella Fitzgerald leaped from amateur night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater into the Chick Webb big band and from there to the hit parade with a song she derived from a nursery rhyme, “A-Tisket-A-Tasket.” It became an unlikely international hit, thanks to the verve in her voice and Webb’s swinging rhythm, setting her on the way to become the world’s most admired jazz pop singer.

With Becoming Ella Fitzgerald, Judith Tick tells a fuller story of the singer’s life, social context and cultural influence than previous biographers. The Northeastern University professor emerita of music history benefitted from the digitalization of newspaper archives, especially the African American press and periodicals from overseas. She conducted research from home that would have netted frequent flier miles until recently.

One thing that emerges, albeit unsurprisingly, is the devotion she attracted among Black audiences, especially the pride taken in her many accomplishments. Tick’s research shows that Fitzgerald spoke more candidly to Black reporters than the mainstream media. “Those interviews in the Black press enabled me to let Ella speak for herself,” Tick writes. 

Fitzgerald had the grace to rise above the often-unthinking racism of 1930s and ‘40s America. Tick cites Universal Studio’s publicity materials for her role in Abbott and Costello’s Ride ‘em Cowboy (1942), which “minstrelized her in a fabricated dialogue” with the movie’s director. “Mr. Lubin, I’se glad I done okay, this job sho am going to change my mode of livin,’” were the words ascribed to her by publicists. 

Fitzgerald also broke ground for “girl singers” in the swing era even as she seldom stood still. She pivoted to bebop in the ‘40s and in the ‘50s, helped define the Great American Songbook with her LP recordings of Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and other songwriters of the recent past. In 1964 when “most jazz critics, along with most of the cultural establishment, generally condescended to the Beatles," she recorded “Can’t Buy Me Love” as a “shiny, big band swing tune.” Along with her ongoing collaborations with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and her exploration of bossa nova, she recorded Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and numbers by Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Burt Bacharach and Smokey Robinson. Fitzgerald remained a vibrant performer into the 1990s and receives an appreciative account in Becoming Ella Fitzgerald.

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